Free Education

Integrated Education for Visually Impaired Children

The integrated education project has the aim of integrating the visually challenged children to main stream. The main focus of this program is to educate visually impaired children with the mainstream of formal education and special schools and also to work with visually impaired children, who need training on daily living skills, orientation, mobility and basic education.

The project has been running since 2004. During this period we have achieved a complete integration of children in normal schools. Our specialized teachers taught the children and their family members to make this possible. Today our work is mainly focused in identifying new cases and in generating study materials for these children and helping them with school and college admissions

Objectives

The main purpose of this effort is to address the special needs of children in terms of educational rehabilitation (O&M and Daily living skills).
To provide an approach towards school readiness for the children with special needs in terms of peers, teachers, and constructional stand point through the orientation of the integrated teacher.
To promote the philosophy of inclusive education.
Distribution of aids and appliances to the identifies students
Proper utilization of technical knowledge to handle the children in class room situation with the help of trained resource person (special educators)

Activities

Providing integrated education to visually impaired children.
Helping visually impaired children enrol in schools
Teachers training
Parents meeting and training
Developing teaching Aids

Achievements until now

172 children enrolled in integrated education
Blindness certificates issued to all children.
8 teachers trained in integrated education

Conclusion

In our project area there is only one special school for disabled children, which is located at Irenepuram in Killiyoor Block, run and managed by the CSI diocese. The villagers from the far off villages have to put their children in the hostels available in this school. Our intervention in the field of education for the disabled children through the IE program, maintained these parents no longer to restrain their children from receiving education, the disabled children were put in regular schools in their home town and our teachers provided them with educational classes using Baillie and the necessary study materials. Moreover, the children who were not able to go regular schools were given education in their house itself, thus the families of these poor students need not worry about the education of their children. It is also ascertained that he education given by our teachers indeed brought a great success in the life of these children.

Rehabilitation of visually impaired people

CADRE-India offers rehabilitation to visually impaired members of the community who:
- Are blind by birth but didn't get rehabilitation during their childhood.
- Became blind during their lives as a result of eye diseases.
The main problems faced by these people are:
- Social exclusion: due to the lack of mobility knowledge, they are not able to leave their homes and feel guilty and ashamed for being a burden to their families.
- Economic dependence: they have never developed professional skills and therefore they are not able to have any income.
- Psychological problems: lack of self-confidence, extreme shyness

CADRE-India's intervention:

CADRE-India is conducting eye camps in the Kanyakumari District, to give awareness on eye diseases and to make regular vision checkups to the community. The NGO also gives counseling to cataract affected people and their families and accompany them during their cataract operation processes. CADRE-India believes that through prevention most of the cases of blindness in adults can be avoided.

CADRE-India is also identifying visually impaired people and teaching them mobility and working skills. Through this, we are successfully avoiding social and economic exclusion and building up self-confidence. When our beneficiaries learn mobility, they are more confident to help their families in the household activities and also to leave the house and meet other members of their communities. The main working skills taught are palm leaf handicrafts and the results of their production are being commercialized through the organization. CADRE-India also helps visually impaired people to open their own business.

With the help of our charity box we are also able to provided financial help to those visually impaired beneficiaries, who are in situations of extreme need.

Rehabilitation for multisensory impaired children:

CADRE-India is giving rehabilitation to Multisensory Impaired Children (MSI) in their homes. The NGO identifies these children through stakeholders in the community and gives counseling to their families and rehabilitation to the children. Our team of professional teachers go to the children's house and create a specific program with specific goals depending on the child's needs and abilities. We encourage the families to train their child everyday following the exercises taught by the teachers. The program is being a big success and the children are making very big improvements.